CONTRIBUTED ARTICLE
An eclectic photography show by Gwen McDonald and Curt Firestone — called the Her and Him Photography Show — opened last Thursday in the Salt Spring Public Library’s community program room.
McDonald and Firestone are a Salt Spring Island couple who have been actively engaged in photography from young adulthood, photographing for personal enjoyment, to capture their fascination with the world around them, and to document their many worldwide travels, both singly and together.
McDonald and Firestone began their dive into photography while living in the San Francisco Bay area. Their inventory of images grew exponentially. Self-taught photographers, they photographed and printed what they liked, filled their home with photographic art, but until moving to Salt Spring Island in 2007 had never shown their work publicly.
Shortly after their move, and embracing their new island home, they decided to enter a few images in the Salt Spring Fall Fair photography competition. To their surprise and delight, each won awards for their entries. This sudden boost in confidence led to their joining the newly forming Salt Spring Photography Club, an effort spearheaded by several outstanding photographers. This new group provided a supportive, collegial community of photographers, ranging from rank beginners with basic equipment and very few computer editing skills to highly successful seasoned professionals.
The photographs in the library show include favourite images from the past two decades, in both colour and black and white formats. Over the course of these years, they have shown and sold their images on Salt Spring Island, in Victoria and in Mexico. McDonald’s focus tends to be on travel, people, landscapes, architecture and nature, looking for natural beauty, for patterns of light and shadow, and for images that tell a story. Firestone is especially good at street photography and in the post production editing of his images, where he is constantly trying out new techniques.
The Her and Him Photography Show runs through Aug. 30 and is open to the public during normal library hours (10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Mondays through Fridays, and 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturdays). They will be present to discuss their work from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays, Aug. 17 and 24.